Purple streaks of sunlight fill the evening sky. You step out of your cozy house for a quick stroll after which you will have a silent dinner under the stars that you barely notice. The air is fragrant and light. So light that your breaths carry them away, beyond the horizon, never to return again. Your worries and anxieties still run about in your mind, though you cover them up under a fake smile. Lumps still form in your throat and your heart aches everytime they decide to run amok in your mind. But you wish them away, not wanting to ruin what is otherwise a beautiful evening.

You walk along the streets and can’t help but notice the orange hue on the river, glistening under the last rays of the sun. The river had always been a special place for you. It brought back memories of good times and left you feeling stronger. It was one of those places you wished you could bottle up and enjoy later.

You glide down the streets and notice me sitting on a perk bench. You think I’m happy though you know I’ve always felt tour guides were the happiest people around. Street lights flicker and turn on.

You walk without a clear destination, the promise of a magical place luring you in deeper. For the first time in months you look up at the sky and see the millions of stars that have been waiting for your attention, light years away, yet twinkling as if they were within your grasp. You let your mind wander, free from the heavy thoughts that have been weighing you down for so long.

You hear crickets chirping as the last rays of the sun penetrate the canopy of the forest on a hill outside town, that you’ve always wanted to visit. You see squirrels running around having their final drink of the day, before they drift into the vastness of sleep. Who knows what they might dream about. The air is laden with the smell of flowers far-away. The frangrance is a bit tangy but sweet, you can almost taste it. Stones crunch like potato chips under your feet as you near a hill. It seems the promise of a magical place has brrn fulfilled, but you probe deeper. Everything in this dark place radiates a certain joy and feels magical, yet natural. You can’t help but wonder if this is a dream, and everything in front of you is but a figment of your dormant imagination.

Old dreams are rediscovered as you watch birds drift smoothly into their nests and settling down for the night. Today’s worries and failures are all forgotten. What still remains is the promise of a brighter tomorrow.

The hill is steeper now. The physical exertions bring you back to reality. You turn around and your eyes widen in amazement. The city is bathed in a million points of light, illuminating the place you call home. You realize you’re pretty far away; the city is below you in a valley. Its vey dark now and you are amazed you made it this far, yet you carry on.

Deep in the forest is a clearing, which tonight is filled with moonlight. You walk into the clearing and see the nectar, pouring from heaven to this world of us mortals. The crickets chirp in chorus and there is nothing you can do, but enjoy this spectacular scene, devour it with your eyes and engrave it on your mind. Everything is perfect.

You open your eyes but they are immediately blinded. Your face feels warm. And wet. As your eyes adjust to the light, you feel a wave crash into you. You wake up beside the ocean and realise you’re in Hawaii.

After a long time in rehab, I spent some time thinking about where I am and where I’m headed to.
Life is long, but its not long enough for the battles that aren’t yours.
I’ve decided that the story I started writing is one such battle.
I shall discontinue releasing further episodes of the story.
The first 2 episodes shall remain, as a memorial.
Hope to publish more essays and poems from now on.

Today I stumbled upon this video of a TEDx talk by Angela Maiers. In it, she talked about two words. Two simple words, which when used together, had unfathomable meaning.

YOU MATTER

These words are powerful. Powerful enough to change minds, motivate people and push them to success. They can inspire human minds and help change the world. But it’s not an “ego thing”, as Angela puts it. We humans are designed for it genetically.

Just like a plant withers without water and sunshine, the human mind cannot (I repeat, cannot) reach its full potential, if its abilities go unnoticed. Everyone matters, everyone is important. Anyone and everyone can make a difference in this world. You are only limited by your own fears and doubts. Believe in yourself.

The worst thing that can happen to a human is being neglected, not being noticed for any ability of theirs. It creates gap between people, may cause depression and make people question their very existence.
(Disclaimer: I have often questioned my own existence at difficult point in my life.)
People, as individuals crave for recognition. Not fame, but recognition, no matter how small. A simple ‘Thank You’, a kind word of affection, a small help now and then, all these activities could make someone’s day.

Yet, we live on in our fast-paced life, as I wrote recently, caring neither for others nor for our own growth. We have become slaves to the free modern world. We must realize that everyone has influence. Anyone can influence you and you can influence anyone. No matter how old or young someone is, they have influence. And they matter. YOU matter.

Life is a short time we spend on this planet. What good is it, if we never help out our fellow beings? Your friends matter, your parents matter, your relatives, colleagues, neighbors, the people you haven’t even met, everyone matters. But to understand that, you must first realize a greater truth. YOU MATTER.

“Be the change the world need to see.” – Gandhi

Do read more on this topic and try to really understand it. I would suggest you to read this post by Angela herself, called the ‘You Matter Manifesto‘.

Expectations are worthless. Yet everybody has them, not knowing how dangerous a thing it is. Expectations depress us, when things don’t turn out the way we expect it to. It makes us admit defeat when the smallest of obstruction blocks our way towards success. Expectations never do make a successful man. A carefree man is SO much more productive than one who has a threshold expectation to pass.

People expect so many things in daily life, some of them, even impossible. They expect everyone else to be kind to them, though they might be black of heart. They expect the most from their children, who strain away their lives, trying to match the expectations of their parents and elders. We expect a steep pay hike, and yet, no matter how high, our greed never is satisfied. We blame ourselves for our faults,when it is clear that our over-expectations caused them in the first place.

We expect good things to happen in life, yet we take not a minute of our lives to think about it. Life is full of ups and downs. You just cannot want to have a life that is always up, that would be the most boring thing in the world. Living such a life would be terrifying. We expect others to understand our shortcomings, yet we are insensitive to theirs. We blame people for human errors that we could have committed. We expect the world to be a better place, yet we do not look into ourselves, to see the mess there is.

Someone has wisely said, to change the world, change yourself. It is true. People talk of how they will change the world, or complain about how bad this world is, how they are being judged by their peers and how they want someone to come change this world, like a superhero. Yet, no one looks into themselves, they do not introspect, see?

They do not see the dark, grim and unforgiving place withing them, in their heart. Today’s fast-paced world has turned us into monsters, pre-occupied with things that should otherwise be, not to be dealt with. We are always in a hurry, wasting time on things that do not deserve the time, worrying about things that are negligible compared to our life, the greatest gift you and I and every person and being alive in this planet has received.

We have turned, as I say, into monsters, really. We have cut away our hearts from our bodies. We are humane no more, we are simply homo sapiens. Our heart has withered away by the hurry of modern life. What joy would it bring, if we were to slow down for a while, forget all our worries, forget all our appointments, forget everything in this world and stare at life?

To understand life is to understand what drives this world. You and I are part of it. The world we live in is imperfect. Yet, it is the perfect design for our world, because imperfection breeds life. It is in imperfection that perfection can be found, it is in imperfection that happiness can be uncovered. Yet, we do not. We blame the world for being imperfect. We do not slow down and marvel at the beauty of life.

If we did, we would understand how fragile this world is, how fragile our existence is. We would understand what it really means to be alive, to be a human. If only we could remain silent, the whole world, for 12 seconds, as Pablo Neruda wants, life would be so much better for all humans around the world. Pablo Neruda wrote in his poem, Keeping Quietthat he wanted the whole world to remain silent and introspect about their lives and what they were doing.

Yet, we still continue to live, without time for love, relations or the joys of life, consumed by anxiety, the fear of failure and the pressure to succeed in life, which is regarded by many as the pinnacle of life. Life is so much more than that, it is an amalgam of happy and sad moments, peppered with interesting moments we spend with our loved ones. Nobody really understands that, since to really understand true joy and happiness, one has to let go of his wishes and wants. One should also let go of his/her expectations. Expectations ruin everything. They make you look at things critically, in a negative way.

Life is something you get only once (unless you’re a cat!), and it’s not worth risking everything trying to please others who are not even interested in your well being or progress. Stop trying to make people happy. Identify the people who really want to see you succeed, they bring out the best in you. Remove all expectations, wants and wishes out of your life. Those are the things that are slowing you down, making you depressed and causing you to fail. Once you expect nothing, you get the zeal for life.

You learn to take life as it comes at you, you will become much more happy. No matter what happens, you will only receive it with arms wide open and a cheeky grin that borders on a smile. Life is too short to waste on silly things, you should try to live, not just exist. Enjoy each moment to the fullest.

I know how hollow these words might sound, since everyone out there says this. Yet no one really understands the simple truth behind it. There are several thoughts in my mind on why expectation ruin the nectar of life, but I have no more words to put them in.

This is a poem which literally came to me in a moment of rage and fury. A sense of loss was what created this rage. Though I’m insane, I tried my best to not let the rage get the best of me. I not only succeeded, but was inspired to write a poem.

I’m furious, yet I feel so glorious

The adrenaline rushes through me

I feel nothing else, I’m boiling

With anger, since nothing turned out

The way I had expected it to.

I care not about what is wrong

The rage is just to mask, how much

It hurts to know that I failed, miserably

At that. All my promises and dreams

Suffocated and dead. My mind

Wanders into streams of pain and guilt

Yet I hide it from the real world.

I am too weak to let my failures

Haunt me again, so I shall put on

The cloak of rage and anger and spread

Around words of doom, just for the fun of it.

This is not to say I’m a harbinger of fury, straight

From the gory depths of hell

I am an angel, at soul at least

I know not of evil, yet my rage consumes me

Feeding the devil present in me.

But only I do know, that this is all but

A mist, shrouded in its secrecy.

I hid this, this wound

And I do know, this rage will make

You sad, but I am in even more sorrow

To bear. My words swim around in circles

But I must make best use of what I can.

I shall now hide my rage, and cry

Till my pain is over. And then

We will be friends, like we used to be.

As I said before, the whole poem was formed in an almost unconscious moment, when I had the least imaginable control over my mind. I still know not the what meaning these words hold.

Everyone is passionate. About something. Sometimes about more than one thing. Passion is joy, it gives you determination, it tells you to keep moving, no matter how bruised your legs or how tired your body. Passion is that little voice inside us all that makes us stronger every time we fall, every time we fail.

Passion knows no differences, no bounds. Passion makes strong the weak, helps us meet challenges head on. If you’re not passionate, you are not living, merely existing. Everyone must be passionate about something; about something they love.

As writers, it is our passion which defines where we go, it defines where we end up. Your passion for writing is what got you started on your journey. A journey to create worlds for escape, to create characters that drive a story forward, to create situations which your readers (and you) could relate to. Sometimes, the journey is also one for self-discovery, like mine.

Writing is like meditation, you often realize the sole truth. I write sole truth simply because truth is unique, there is none other that can match it. Your passion must give you courage to face challenges, to meet difficulty in the eye. Passion is what drives every one of us, and your passion for writing is simply what keeps you going, in the grimmest of days. Even when hope is non-existent, and every fiber of your being begs you to quit, passion boosts you, often out of the problem and towards success.

However, passion has a dark side as well. Passion left to grow like a weed, often has its own dark side effects. Take the example of Hitler, his passion for power took the better of him, his metamorphosis into an evil dictator was quick. Passion must lead you, however it must never (I repeat, NEVER) mislead you. Passion is a good thing. It must inspire you to do helpful things. It must make you do things that are good for you and your community.

Passion inspires you, leads you, to where your interests are, to where the truth is. According to this insane writer, it drives you.

This poem tells the story of a stargazer, who looks up at the skies every night, wondering at what lay where he could not go, of the magnificent stars and galaxies, far away from him. It also shows his wish to travel out to space and discover the unexplored.

Every night I gaze, into the dark fabric
That is of the night, laden with white dots
Twinkling from afar, filling the universe
And everyone in it, with happiness
Yet consuming themselves, for others to see.
I look every night, gaze to be precise
Into the skies, with wondrous eyes.
I see the moon and the stars
Reflecting light that is not theirs
Yet the world is happy
For everyone marvels at the beauty
Caring not for whose it is.
What I look for are shooting stars
To make a wish of mine, like a child
I yearn to know what lies beyond
What exists far away from us
Of strange worlds, and stranger beings
Do the really exist?
Oh, to swim through the stream of space
Dark and cold and dry
What would I not give
To play in the Milky Way
To gather stardust
And look at white dwarfs
But I’ll be careful
Not to get sucked into a black hole
To never return, lost in another
Place? Or time? Or dimension?
I know not, what lies ahead of me
In the dark space, that is space.
Yet I dream, with every fiber
Of my being, it is like breathing
An explorer, that is what I aspire to be
Flowing through the vast territory of space.
Ripped apart are the old galaxies
Stars burning themselves till they die.
Yet new ones form, galaxies and stars.
It is the cycle of life, the eternal one
That drives our Universe.
It continues to turn, even in the vast
Uncharted remains of dead space.
Dead space, yet so alive, so full of life.